Novelist and journalist Dave Hill

April 30, 2007

I'll be doing only minimal blogging for the next couple of weeks as I strain every braincell to break the back of Holy Football. Speaking of which, this rather murky picture and, in particular, this 2001 story I've never been able to forget have given me a plot idea.

"It seems that Queens Park Rangers may have had their prayers answered - quite literally. The Division Two side have had a tough time over the past few months, tumbling down a league and going into administration with debts of £11m. But the path to enlightenment may have been revealed in the form of the Unification Church, otherwise known as the Moonies. QPR spokesman Mike Hartwell has admitted that the religious movement has shown an interest in buying the club. Involvement with the Unification Church, famous for their mass wedding ceremonies, may be worrying to some at Loftus Road. But it would mean belonging to a huge financial empire. The Moonies are estimated to have over $10bn in business assets, including an American daily newspaper, the University of Bridgeport and a major publishing company. The church also owns a number of other clubs across the world, including teams in Brazil and Korea."

April 29, 2007

This is a photo of a TV studio wall; the studio in which The Moral Of The Story is recorded. I'll be on it tonight (ITV, 00.05), my final appearance of the series which ends next week. Up for discussion with Cristina Odone and Sam Delaney are the ethics of screening embryos in vitro for genes related to breast cancer and Israel's use of military law to criminalise Palestinian children. Here are two more good examples of why I've found appearing on the programme so valuable: it has required me to strive to think and speak clearly about difficult issues I would otherwise have tended to avoid. It's also worked quite well, I think. Unlike so many discussion shows it has usually generated more light than heat. With luck, there will be a second series. With even more luck, I'll be asked back. Meantimes, if you think I'm making it up about the green, click on the mini pic. (below, left) and presenter Alastair Stewart himself will miraculously appear.

April 28, 2007

"Our feelings of safety or security can't be measured by statistics alone. If there is an air of intimidation in a community or discourtesy in the way people are treated, then that creates a feeling of fear, discomfort, unease. Fifteen years ago I recognised this happening and recognised, too, that it couldn't just be ascribed to lack of jobs or poverty. There was something deeper going on, to do with society changing, an absence of mutual respect and a failure to take responsibility for the way we behave to each other. In government, this became known as the 'Respect' agenda. We introduced the first anti-social behaviour laws, much criticised, but also undoubtedly much used.

However, there is one big difference between what I think now and what I thought 15 years ago. Then I analysed this issue as a breakdown in society. The 'tough on the causes of crime' bit was all about social investment. I regarded this an issue about the nature of society as a whole, curable by Sure Start and the New Deal on jobs, better and improved schooling and so on. The rising tide would lift all ships, including those families in a hopeless and often helpless situation, bringing up feckless and irresponsible children...after 10 years of experience immersing myself in this issue, I no longer agree either with the Blair of 1992 or the Cameron of 2007 in one very central part of the analysis. I don't believe this is an issue to do with society as a whole. Obviously it impacts on society as a whole. But it is not part of a general breakdown in society, a tearing of our social fabric or a descent into a 'decivilised' culture. Investment in the public realm has helped a transformation in city centres and improvements in public services, but I no longer think that social investment - essential though it is - is the complete solution."

Yes, yes, very neat. What he's essentially saying is that he really, really has made society much better but there are a few bad people who don't know how to behave in it and what can you do except get tough with them? Well, maybe. But you see, Tone, some of us think that your antisocial behaviour legislation isn't really getting tough at all - it's just acting tough, which isn't the same thing. Might part of this story be that some transformations of the "public realm" haven't necessarily helped the sections of society where much of the antisocial behaviour people dislike so much is rooted, as indicated by school exlusion rates for instance? Could it also be that the anti-social logic of what Neil Kinnock called the "me now" mentality has become more entrenched in spite of - or maybe because of - some of "New" Labour's priorities? And could the primary purpose of this minor mea culpa be a way of disassociating yourself from those failures as history reaches its verdict on your ten years in power?

April 27, 2007

This short-order, self-published, PODMad Novel of mine will comprise six chapters each of 8,000-10,000 words - except for the first one which has turned out to be around 13,000 words. I'm hoping to pare that down when I ruthlessly edit it later, although some over-length may be unavoidable due to the need to set the story up, introduce the rather large cast of characters and so on. I've made a decent start on the second chapter too: close on 3,000 words of fair quality. However, I think it makes more sense to measure my progress at this stage by the number of scenes I have completed to decent first-draft standard rather by the numbers of words I've produced. It is vital that I don't end up just covering paper, as it were. Tying-up a scene within a self-defined timeframe is more likely to exert the sort of discipline required if I'm to meet my ludicrous deadline. So let's quantify the task a different way. I'm anticipating each chapter comprising around six scenes. Six times six is thirty-six but let's round that up to forty just in case. I have six of those forty scenes in good enough order to set them aside for now. I have another three underway. And I have three weeks left to finish the whole thing. Gulp.

Meanwhile, here's a tiny taste of what I've done so far. It features two of the main characters: Genevieve Low-Bunga, Cultural And Moral Philosophy post-graduate prodigy from the University of Virginia Waters and her teenage sidekick and protege. They are watching a football match between two under-11 teams on the protege's home town recreation ground. There's just been a controversial sending off.

"As the game got back underway Genevieve turned to her companion, a young man she outranked by nearly a foot.

'So Wilfred,' she said, 'How do you interpret the conflictual bricollage which we are both observers of and, albeit tangentially, participants in too?'

Wilfred Tapscott – 'Wilfy', since the demotic code shall always apply here - glanced up at Genevieve from deep within the fur-lined hood of his camouflage print parka. Before answering, he took a good look round. The match was being held on the permanently half-ruined recreation ground of a small town called Fullbladder, the truly, madly, deeply unrewarding place where Wilfy had been born seventeen years earlier and had lived his entire life since. The landscape of the rec was imprinted on his soul, as were those that stretched beyond it: climbing away on one side, the wind-hammered, sheep-mottled Fullbladder Moor. On the other, narrow streets ridged like dinosaurs’ spines with tiny terraced houses and at their addled heart the Poundstretcher panorama of Fullbladder town centre.

Wilfy's customary tone when speaking of his hometown was one of sledgehammer deadpan. This was a true reflection of his attitude to it, but also a means of concealing both his immersion in its stagnation and his addiction to its lore. Fullbladder's biggest claim to fame was the lynching in 1317 of a resident simpleton, the so-called 'Fullbladder Len', for aggravated hog-worrying. According to Fullbladder: Myth and Mystery, a local history pamphlet compiled by Fullbladder’s now ex-librarian, the culprit was forced to endure 'obliteration by blancmange' - though this may have been a misprint - a demise greatly enjoyed by a crowd of 'several score'. Wilfy made much of relishing this heritage when inhabiting the ironising persona he habitually chose to present to the world. Yet he was secretly excited that Len's pre-eminence in Fullbladder history was certain to be eclipsed late on the coming afternoon when a different kind of slaughter would occur - that of the local football team Fullbladder Athletic by the visiting potentates of Mancunia Global in the Third Round of the FA Cup.

Wilfy had his ticket in his pocket and Genevieve had hers too. For now, though, both were absorbed by the contest before them and by its many dissonant resonances.

"Crowd behaviour is characterized by a number of distinctive features. Firstly, a crowd is anonymous and erases feelings of self-consciousness. A typical modern sporting audience involves thousands of people, some male, some female, some drunk, some semi-naked, some singing, some screaming, and some simply watching the action. This multi-faceted setting may also destroy any sense of individual responsibility. The individual, while part of the crowd, indulges in behaviour which he would normally control, because moral responsibility has been shifted from himself to the crowd as a whole.(1) There is a decrease in the level of personal accountability because the individual's responses are covered up by the responses of the many others around him.

Secondly, there is a removal of inhibitions. This is why crowd violence at sporting functions may not only cause fatalities, but also damage to property and general uncivilised behaviour. For example, on 5th May 1990, during a soccer match in Bournemouth, Leeds fans ran amok. Over 100 arrests were made not only for assault but looting and rioting as well.

Thirdly, the crowd is typified by a sense of increased suggestibility. This can be defined as a tendency to respond to stimulus in an uncritical fashion and without rational control over the nature of the response. In simple words, in a crowd, one does things without conscious reflection and thought regarding the effects of such behaviour.

Experts believe that intoxicants (eg. drugs and alcohol) and rhythmical sounds like the beating of drums can put a crowd into a state of increased suggestibility. The analysis of a sporting audience shows that alcohol, drugs and some form of rhythm are combined in variable proportions. Rhythm is generated by synchronized clapping, dancing, waving of scarves, flags, music and songs.

An important implication of crowd behaviour is the emotional interaction. The individual's responses are affected by the responses of those around him. His actions and emotions become reinforced as he observes the actions and emotions of others. This means that the individual may approve and even engage in acts such as violence, vulgar language, dancing, etc. This kind of behaviour should never be tolerated from society, least of all from a Muslim."

April 26, 2007

"Have I ever mentioned the fact that I am a step-parent? We are what the textbooks refer to as a ‘blended family’: me and my son, The Husband and his daughter. We look like a perfectly normal family. The children very easily pass for siblings except that that they don’t invest their energy in trying to secretly maim, shame or kill each other. They get on like a house on fire. They are, in fact, great friends and will hug warmly when they come back to our house after a period with ‘the other parents’ (as we quaintly call them.) I have read a lot about step parenting. Partly for my work with young mothers where step parenting is becoming the norm, and partly to reassure myself that it really is as difficult as it feels sometimes."

I'm not quoting the following either to attack it or endorse it. It does, though, seem to encapsulate much of the disillusion presently dragging "New" Labour down:

"When I had my first child, in 2000, I went to Queen Charlotte's Hospital in Chiswick. It was the hospital where I was born and nothing seemed to have changed. Paint was peeling off the walls, the blinds were broken, the food mainly consisted of Jaffa cakes bought at the local garage, but the service was fantastic. The hospital provided one-to-one midwifery and home visits, the consultant could concentrate on patients rather than paperwork, and the staff appeared badly paid but proud of their achievements.

By the time I had my second child, the hospital had moved to a gleaming new building next to Wormwood Scrubs prison. You could buy toffee yoghurts from the shop but the system seemed less efficient. The midwives were overstretched and under-equipped, no accommodation had been provided for them, so they often commuted an hour to work in the middle of the night and seemed exhausted. They were expected to follow endless directives and could no longer rely on intuition and experience or get to know their mothers. One week they were told to encourage hospital births, the next week women were supposed to be getting out the paddling pool in the bedroom. By the time I had my fourth child, last year, there were no available beds so we went straight home after the birth - but at least we didn't have to pay for the now exorbitant cost of the car park.

My post-natal experience was worse. After the birth of my first baby, the doorbell rang and Terry, the health visitor, arrived. She had been looking after new mothers for 20 years and dispensed good advice. By my second child, she had quit. When I bumped into her in the supermarket she explained that she couldn't cope with the workload. She may have been offered a larger salary but she was expected to see twice as many cases. She no longer had the chance to have a cup of tea with her new mothers and check they weren't depressed - all she did was fill out forms.

By my fourth child, the midwife who eventually came to our house, a week after the birth, had to fill out 30 pages of forms - she didn't even have time to weigh the baby. When I took my son to the surgery, a frazzled temporary health visitor misread the growth chart and sent him as dangerously underweight to hospital, where he nearly broke the scales. The surgery now struggles to cope - it has a new computer but has no idea of the number of jabs my children have received."

Would things have been better under the Tories? I doubt it. Would they better under Cameron? I doubt that too. But am I still in the majority? The whole piece by Alice Thomson is here.